Category Archives: Lectorial

Are the audiences listening?

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Audience theories date back to the early 20th century. in the 70’s there was a shift towards the idea that the audience is active, and not passive. The patriachy was interested in these theories to understand how to advertise properly.

Broadcast paradigm: the effect tv has on the nation, it orginingally wasnt there for advertisint. The culture industry that comes out of the 40’s 50’s, german jewish and saw what what happening in cinema, nazi brainwashing. Saw the American system and thought it was just as bad. The media was focused on keeeping the masses controlled

Post-broadcast paradigm: understands audiences are more complex and it is about recognising teh ragmentation of the audience. its about consumers. its about a different category of consumption. Individual choice

We have only lived in a post-broadcast world

Establishments who are interested in these thories: government, advertisers, communication occupationists, prodution houses, social scientist/psychologists, cultural theories/ media scholars. They use semiotic analyses

key debates

  • means of production is cheaper,
  • distribution and consumption (internet)
  • no longer do places do one soul area of production
  • convergence of telco companies and television
  • aesthetic sensililities, the emergence of true tv narratives

Audience practices is the main one

  • The living room is now brocken
  • What are audiences doing now

Media effects thoery

  • Anxiety of tvs power
  • audeicnes is passive/ manipulated brainwashed
  • lab experiments, focus groups, playground

What happens if your work is taken to court for copyright infringement

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When doing student research, like for the upcoming group assignments, we are covered by a fair dealing claus ‘educational purposes’. Although this covers us from copyright infringement, it may not hold up in law. So even when using fair dealings as an offence its better to be safe than sorry and get approval.

Its ok to use copyright works for assignments but internal passwords should be used. Its alright to use copyrighted photos in scrapbooks or on posters but if they are going public it is not ok.

Things that the court will look if you are taken to court.
The purpose and character or the work; is it mocking someone or made for unsociable reasons.
The amount borrowed from a work and its substantiality in relation to the whole video
The effect on the marketplace. if your video gets more money than the original or destablizes the copyright holder
The potential to license the material you used off the original e.g If there was no reply in the copyright holders email

Parody and satire can be used as a defence, but it could also defame someones name.
substantially similar 10% or 30% rule
adaptions / modifications – licence / contracted rights

Documentary Filmmakers’ Statement of Best Practices in Fair Use

Copyright: Right or Wrong?

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Copyright is automatic and what you create is what you own. Copyright it doesn’t protect an idea, it protects a creation

e.g. you cant copyright the Pen, but you can copyright a pen design.

Its usually a good idea to mark your work with a statement. So if you’ve made a script and are giving it to people, make it obvious that the script is yours. So a heading thats says something like “The information in this document is confidential and must not be used or without first obtaining [name] written consent”

What are the different elements contained in copyright?

Exclusive rights: Sets out economic rights for your work e.g If someone can use if for commercial purposes
Original works: Are artistic, literary, dramatic works
Subject matter other than works: sound recording, cinematographic works, Tv, published editions
Exceptions: employer ownership, contract/licence, assignment of rights – youtube is given a non exclusive right

Moral rights: applies to all copyright works referencing – treatment of work
Integrity: – honour and reputation
Right of attribution: Its the creators right to be attributed to their creation. Offending this right by not attributing can lead to lawsuite
Right of false attribution: Self explanatory, if a work is falsely attributed to another person

Duration of copyright – Copyright lasts the life of the author plus 70 years. Different countries have differing terms. there are certain factors that influence duration of copyright aswell.

Even if the work is unpublished it is still under copyright. If it is published anonymously or under a pseudonym it is still under copyright

Exceptions: public – fair dealing, Education, Libraries/archives, Cultural institutions/museums
Infringement:  Rights of ownership. It is an infringement to use a substantial part of a work (quality rather than quantity) without permission e.g uploading Avengers to youtube. If the Moral rights of the copyright holder are challenge they can sue

 

 

Copyright Exploration

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In todays Lectorial a portion was devoted to the concept of copyright and appropriation. My view on Copyright is a lot different now that im an ‘Adult’ because it means im more accountable for using other peoples material. Music is a big thing I use in my videos without asking for permission. Its kind of scary because someones more likely to sue. Ive been working on Abelton Live so that i can produce my own music instead on relying on getting permission.

Over the next week i’m going to research and then build an essay that explores the idea of originality by looking at the past, present and future of the art world.

I’ll split the essay into two sections which are linked bellow.

Part 1: Jeff Koons, Warhol and Duchamp – Challenges for the art world

Part 2: Michael Mandiberg – New age appropriation and ‘the remix’

 

Audio editing reflection of Project 3 ‘Head Trauma’

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This is a continuation of my reflection but focuses on the problems i had with audio editing.

Audio quality is a very important element in any video production, especially documentaries with interviews because they rely almost entirely on the clarity of speech.

The first problem i had with audio was at the recording location. I recorded the atmos track and noticed there was a small amount of noise despite it being a very quite room. I knew i could fix this in audition so dismissed it. I wasn’t  using a Zoom H2n and i should have borrowed one, but i thought using a friends new Rode shotgun mic would work just fine and cut most of the noise out.

When actually editing the audio I quickly realised the kerfuffle I was in. I captured a ‘noise print’ from the atmos track, then deducted the noise using the ‘noise reduction’ tool in Audition. Unfortunately by doing this it also cut out a lot of the harmonics and made the audio the sound as if it was being listened to though a long tube (like heavy compression on the internet). I applied a few different EQ’s (echoes as well) to beef up the low and high frequencies but it had minimal effect.

Screen Shot 2016-04-19 at 4.08.26 PM

As you can see in the above picture, the top right red audio wave was the before noise reduction, underneath is the is after reduction. The purple speckles have been totally removed giving ‘clean’ audio.

So i decided to hide the lost harmonics using music. I had always had the intention of using music to build the sequence but now it was even more important for ‘fixing’ the mediocre interview recordings.

Firstly i placed two music tracks (one ambient) underneath the entirety of the film. The music was integral to the pacing of the video as well as the delivery of the interviewees speech. As a result it would be hard to understand everything that was said on the first and second viewing of the film. I picked up on the illegibility while editing but couldn’t see the extent of it because I had been working with the same audio of many hours.

I did test the audio with headphones on and off  but i didn’t find the right balance between them. I could have added subtitles to the bottom of the video but it would have taken the audience out of the film instead of immersing them.
Reflecting on this project i wish i had of borrowed the Zoom h2N. In future projects i will record on two audio devices just so i have a backup recording

 

 

Head Trauma – Reflection – Project 3

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http://www.mediafactory.org.au/alexander-wilson/2016/04/19/head-trauma-project-3-documentary

In my last reflection I said I wanted to pull away from lo-fi aesthetics ad themes. I always had this intention. Now with Project 3 completed I feel like I have succeeded in making something a bit more beautiful.

So how did the portrait turn out? Pretty good.
I was happy overall and with the general flow of the film. It does have a certain momentum throughout. It has distinct peaks. It has a resolution. A climax as well. But one thing I will take away from this is a new profound respect for people who create documentaries. It’s bloody hard, tedious and tiresome. I spent so long going though the footage, cutting and positioning them to make sense of what I actually had.

Cuttings the easy bit. The hardest part is finding the best clip, out of the many. What makes it harder is that I have a particular OCD (self diagnosed but not that serious) with this kind of stuff I HAD to make sure I had the right piece of footage. I would often lose things throughout the premiere timeline and have to skim though every sound bite until I found the one that’s in my head.

Another thing I found hard, which I assume everyone else was experiencing, was trying to fit the story in 3minutes. I believe this is impossible to achieve (in most cases) if the story is to maintain its integrity. There were really important aspects in Ed’s journey that I couldn’t fit in. While the portrait still holds together, if I just had another minute of runtime the whole vibe of the video would be very different. But because there was such a hard constraint it forces your to decide what’s actually important, and what isn’t.

Seperate reflection on the audio composition

One thing I think I did well on the video was the incorporation of multiple storylines. There’s the story of the fish in the dirty tank then to the clean tank at the end, symbolising Eds positive outlook and reflection on the traumatic event. There’s the storyline of the invincible man which complements Eds story;

Zapped with electricity -> Eds seizure and coma

Waking up -> Ed Waking up

Confusion when waking up -> Eds confusion of the Clay woman

Indestructible man being helped to the bed -> Ed realizing the severity

I feel like harmony and closure of the plot was complimented thought this process.
I’m actually really interested in dream sequences so deciding to interview Ed was a no brainer (Disclaimer Eds also a good friend). For my VCE media video I tackled similar concepts of consciousness but because this is a real story I had to stick to it. I filmed all the B-roll in 60fps so in post-production I could slow it down to give it the ‘dream’ aesthetic. Fading the dark shots over each other and applying blend modes created some great transitioning. The RGB split represented Ed slowly falling into the coma. On all the shots I also added a blurriness to further the dream aesthetic

I purposefully didn’t show Ed talking till the pace shift (where the music changes). I wanted the audience to feel as though they were watching a story unfold. Then forced them into current time by showing Ed now, talking to the camera. I only revealed darkened glimpses of Ed in the bathroom to heighten feelings in the pace shift. I do worry that some of the narration is hard to understand and hear properly.

This project went a lot smoother than the last, mainly because I had to organise the interview at least a week before the deadline. I slowly chipped away at it. Although I spent all of yesterday working on this I am very happy with the outcome.

Collaboration and Good Teamwork

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“Groans”
Rachel raised a suggestion that most people in high school would ‘groan’ when hearing they have to do a group assignment. I love collaboration and have always loved it. In primary school, collaboration could be both the best and the worst. I had a partner id always go with (he was a good friend). Id end up doing most of the work which i found quite annoying. But at the same time i got satisfaction form it knowing that i had created something so good that it was at the level, or if not higher, than people who were in a good healthy working group.

When working on small scale projects it is very easy for one person to do  the whole thing. But obviously this pattern could not continue.
Jump a few years, High school Media year 10 elective. Group work was always fun because it was a bludge. We would make the worst, but best videos because of their sheer stupidity. The other reason why theses videos worked so well was because each member of the team had the same goals and motivations to work together.

What made our process of collaboration so good was that it didn’t matter how stupid the idea was. We would test it and if it didn’t work, we’d scrap it. This meant that no idea was a bad idea. Through this creative process we could share and evolve ideas with minimal criticism and usually build the weaker ideas onto larger ideas.

Collaboration: Alliance, partnership, participation, combination, association, concert; teamwork, joint effort, working together

Continuing on this idea of good teamwork. To be a good collaborator you need to understand your strengths and weaknesses. In ‘One flew over the over the Cuckoo’s Nest’, McMurphy (Jack Nicholson) realises the team can capitalise on Chiefs height (a strength). He places him underneath the basketball hoop so when someone passes Chief the ball he can reach up and dunk it. He can also do the opposite for when the opposition is shooting, he can stop them from scoring

His strength is his height, while his weakness is emotion or speech. McMurphy This is one of my favourite examples of teamwork in film.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6WR_hisHKlI

QUICK DIGRESSION POST1: Noticing Media (music)

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Digression in relation to Avant-Garde Web resource Ubu: i now feel the sun

A quick comment. This year i’ve started to actually appreciate Australian media more and more. The more i actually ‘NOTICE’ the media, the more i see how saturated we are by American influence. Recently i’ve been stumbling upon Australian music groups from the 70’s and 80’s (such as ‘Tully’ and ‘Flash and the Pan’) that are quite ‘underground’ (for someone whos grown up in a completely different era) and really quite interesting. You only hear John Farnham-eque songs on the radio but you never hear these for obvious reasons. While these are more ‘new wave’ they are actually kind of enlightening in their originality compared to music these days. Im not the type of person who says “i wish i lived in the _____”, and i do love current music, but its just the simplicity and progressive qualities of some of these songs from the early 70’s to mid 80’s that and so ‘original’.

Im going to explore Australian Media under a tagging system